Friday, October 1, 2010

I Just Want You to Know

"In I Just Want You to Know, Kate reveals a less familiar spiritual side. She is a grateful and faith-filled mother who only wants the best for her children and is willing to sacrifice to make that happen.”

Since the inception and moral decline of the popular TLC show “John & Kate Plus 8,” many questions have come to me. Upon finding Kate’s book I Just Want You to Know in a local Christian bookstore, some new questions have come to mind: has Kate's faith-filled life led her to the cover of publications like: Star, The National Enquirer, People, and others? Has her faith-filled life led her to the multi-million dollar divorce between her and her husband, John? Has her faith-filled life led her to search results on Google such as: botox, blog, bikini, new man, surgery, plastic surgery, new show, new hair, parents, dancing with the stars? In other words: does she ascribe her success in this life to God, or something else?

Only 1 search result (out of 10) has anything to do with her family, and it isn’t even related to her husband or children which propelled her to stardom in the first place. Ironically, not one search result is even related to TLC or the show at all.

So how is Kate spiritual? How is Kate faith-filled? How is Kate doing what is right for her children? Do we glean from her story that God had her purposed for this life? I find that hard to believe, but perhaps that’s just my theology talking.

I guess the lesson from of all of this is that Kate has provided all of us a picture into what the world and Hollywood has to offer when we step away from God, and instead, lean on our own hubris; right? The premise of their story and how the Gosselin’s came to the point in life where they met TLC is (as far as we the public know) a very heart-warming story. So why did it have to get like this? It’s not for us to judge or criticize the Gosselin’s – but we certainly can learn from them.

* P.S.: don't forget about the eight innocent children that have the rest of their lives to look forward to dealing with this. It would be nice if this were a fictional story and the legal discalimer following every episode could read something like: "no children were harmed in the making of this documentary," but unfortunately I don't think that applies.

Excerpt from the back cover of Kate Gosselin’s book I Just Want You to Know. Zondervan Publishers.